Authors

Theatre historian, writer, and critic, Professor Don Rubin is the executive editor of the six-volume World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, the largest international cooperative project in the history of cultural publishing (Routledge 1995–2000). He was the founding editor of Canada’s national theatre journal, Canadian Theatre Review (CTR), which he edited from 1974 to 1982. Under his aegis, an active theatre book publishing program grew from CTR. Major titles have included the archival series Canada on Stage and the historical series Canada’s Lost Plays. Professor Rubin’s other publications include Canadian Theatre History: Selected Readings (Copp Clark, Toronto, 1996; 2nd ed. Playwrights Canada Press, 2004), the first sourcebook ever in Canadian theatre history. As a theatre critic, he has written for major journals, magazines, and newspapers worldwide. For several years he was a regular critic for the Toronto Star, CBC Radio, and the New Haven Register (Connecticut). Widely travelled, he has lectured on Canadian theatre in France, Russia, Bulgaria, India, Poland, Hungary, and China. He is a former president of the Canadian Centre of the UNESCO-affiliated International Theatre Institute and served for six years as chair of the ITI’s publications committee. He currently teaches at York University. Learn More

Marty Chan lives in Edmonton where he has built acclaim as a playwright, children’s author, and for his work in radio and television. Chan has acted as the first playwright-in-residence at the Citadel Theatre, and taught playwriting at the University of Alberta. Learn More

Sarah Berthiaume is an actor and author. Her first play, The Flood Thereafter, won the Égregore prize in 2006. Some of her other works include Disparitions, Villes Mortes, and Les Orphelins de Madrid. She is the co-founder of Abat-Jour Théâtre, and a writer for Télé-Québec’s show, Tactik.

Paul Ledoux was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He studied at Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He began writing for theatre while living in Montreal and working at the Centaur Theatre.

His play The Electrical Man won the award for best play in the 1976 Quebec Drama Festival. Since then, he has worked as an artistic director, dramaturge, director, designer, and now writes for film and television as well as theatre. He won the Chalmers Award for Fire (written with David Young, premiered at Magnus Theatre, 1986) and was nominated for a second for Secret Garden (adapted from Frances Hodgson Burnett, Young People’s Theatre, 1991). He has twice been a finalist for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Fire and Judy! (Stages Cabaret, 1980). Other plays include: The Children of the Night (Factory Theatre, 1982), As Time Goes By (music by David Smyth and Peter Willson, Magnus, 1986), Sam Slick, The Clockmaker (music by A. MacDonald, Mermaid Theatre, 1983), Love is Strange (with David Young, Magnus, 1984), Cheatin' Hearts (with David Smyth, Magnus, 1994), Ubu the Barbarian (songs by Joe Hall, Arbour Festival), and Anne (Young People’s Theatre, 1998). Learn More

Theatrefront is dedicated to stretching the boundaries of the human experience through theatre. Founded by Artistic Director Daryl Cloran, the Theatrefront ensemble crosses borders to create unique dramatic work. We cross geographic borders to develop new work in collaboration with artists from other countries. We cross borders between artistic mediums to create theatre infused with music, movement, and media. Theatrefront’s work is self-devised and created collaboratively by the ensemble—a core group of theatre professionals who risk, innovate, and experiment together.

Darrell Dennis is a First Nations writer from the Shuswap Nation in the interior of British Columbia. His short stories have been published in periodicals across the country. His work has also been broadcast nationally on CBC Radio. Darrell is a produced playwright and an award-winning writer for television. His script Moccasin Flats was an official selection at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and was later turned into a series for the Showcase Network. His one man show, Tales of an Urban Indian, was nominated for two Dora Mavor Moore Awards: Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Performance by a Male. Darrell is currently working on a novel, a collection of short stories, a feature film script, and is writing for several television series. Learn More

Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian-Australian-Canadian playwright and poet. Her plays Cries from the Land and Three Wishes had successful runs in Canada, and Tales of a City by the Sea enjoyed a sold-out world premiere run at Melbourne’s La Mama Theatre in Australia, an Arabic premiere at the Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Society in Palestine, and was selected for the Victorian Certificate of Education Drama and Theatre Studies Playlist, 2016. Sabawi’s poems feature in anthologies including With Our Eyes Wide Open (West End Press, 2014), Gaza Unsilenced (Just World Books, 2015), and I remember my name (novum publishing, 2016). In 2016 Sabawi received an Australian Postgraduate Award to undertake a PhD by creative project at Victoria University.

Born in Germany, raised in the US, and living in Canada for more than twenty years, Michael A. Miller is a playwright who has created a diverse range of plays for audiences of all ages. Michael has been the playwright in residence at both Factory Theatre and Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. For two seasons he was the coordinator of the CrossCurrents Festival whose mission was to bring works by writers of colour to the mainstage. He has been the artistic director of Theatre Fountainhead, the administrator for Obsidian Theatre Company that, under his direction, produced the highly acclaimed premiere of The Adventures of A Black Girl in Search of God. He was also the artistic producer of Theatre Fountainhead and the administrator for LKTYP. Most recently he was the artistic director of Omiala, A Festival of New Black Culture at Harbourfront. He has extensive experience in arts and education where he developed a long-running program for the Toronto District School Board, the Co-op Theatre Company. This program provided professional training opportunities for young people interested in pursuing theatre as a career. As the resident playwright/director at the TDSB he produced ten new original plays for young people that toured across the city to thousands of the children annually and served as a model of new and innovative approaches to arts for young people. Michael has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Council. He has sat on juries for both the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council. He has won the prestigious Chalmers Canadian Play Award for excellence in playwriting, and been nominated for outstanding work by the Writers Guild of Great Britain. In 2004 he was selected as one of the twelve outstanding artists to be featured on the OAC’s fortieth anniversary website. His latest play, Touch the Sky, premiered at Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in February 2008. Learn More

David Young has written extensively for film and television, beginning with Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock. Most recently he wrote and co-produced a one-hour dramatic comedy pilot for CTV about residential real estate agents. Theatrical works include Love is Strange (with Paul Ledoux); Glenn, a theatrical portrait of Glenn Gould, which had numerous productions in Canada (including at the Stratford Festival) and overseas; and Inexpressible Island, which was produced in Canada, the United States, Germany, and London’s West End. Both Glenn and Inexpressible Island were nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Clout, a portrait of a neoconservative press baron, was co-produced by the National Arts Centre and Tarragon Theatre. David also wrote an adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People for the NAC. David adapted Alistair MacLeod’s award-winning novel No Great Mischief for Tarragon Theatre. Current theatrical projects include Without Hope, Without Fear, a theatrical portrait of Caravaggio for the NAC. David was a founding director of the Writers’ Trust of Canada and is a trustee of the Griffin Poetry Prize. Learn More

Jonathan Garfinkel has written a book of poetry, Glass Psalms, and the book Ambivalence: Adventures in Israel and Palestine (published in Canada, the US, and the UK; forthcoming in Germany and Hungary). His play The Trials of John Demjanjuk: A Holocaust Cabaret has been performed in Canada and Germany and was also published by Playwrights Canada Press. His articles have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Pen International, Judische Allgemeine, and The Walrus. Jonathan divides his time between Berlin, Budapest, and Toronto. Learn More